Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

879 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Integrity on characters in literature

"Jeremy Simms & TJ Avery are two relativly minor characters in the story ROTHMC. However, they both reinforce the themes." Discuss Aprox 1000 words

There are many important Themes in the novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. These themes include: racial prejudice, loyalty, honesty, friendship, personal integrity and respect for others. Although Jeremy Simms and TJ Avery are fairly minor people in the book, their characters are used to inforce and strengthen the themes of the novel.

We first meet TJ Avery when Cassie, Stacey, Little Man and Christopher-John are walking to school. Right from the very start we find out that none of them actually likes TJ, except for Stacey. The reader sees that he is a liar, a cheat and a coward. He is ashamed of being black and he lets the Logan family down in many ways throughout the novel.

One of the ways that he lets them down is when he gets Miz Logan fired. He went up to the store and told Kaleb Wallace that Miz Logan failed him on purpose and that she was destroying school property.
“...I got fired...Harlen Granger came to the school with Kaleb Wallace and one of the school board members. Somebody told them about those books I’d pasted over...but that was only an excuse.'; (Pg 151)
This highlights some of the themes by TJ’s total lack of loyalty and personal integrity.

One of TJ’s biggest mistakes in the book is befriending two white boys, R.W. and Melvin Simms (Jeremy’s brothers). He thinks they are his friends and he doesn’t know that they are just using him. By hanging around with these two he ends up getting himself in a lot of trouble. They talk him into stealing the ‘pearl-handled pistol’ from the Barnett’s store.
“R.W. broke the lock off the gun case with an axe and gave TJ the much-longed- for gun.';
But it goes terribly wrong and TJ wants out, R.W. and Melvin force him to stay.
“...R.W. whopped Mr Barnett solidly on the head from behind with the flat of the axe...Mrs Barnett dashed across the room and flailed into R.W....Trying to escape &n...

... middle of paper ...

...bsp;“‘Thanks Jeremy, it’s real nice’, Stacey said.
.....
As Jeremy reached the door, I cried After him, ‘Merry Christmas, Jeremy!’ He looked back and smiled shyly. ‘Merry Christmas to y’all too.’';

Although Jeremy would make a much better friend than Stacey, Mr Logan doesn’t want Stacey to get too friendly with Jeremy.
“‘...Right now you and Jeremy might get along fine but, in a few years he’ll think of himself as a man and you’ll still be a boy to him...’'; (Pg 129)

Its rather ironic really, Jeremy is a white boy who wants to be black and TJ is a black boy who wants to be white. Although they are both minor characters in the novel, they help to inforce the themes. Jeremy shows this by possesing all the good characteristics, while TJ reinforces the themes by being the complete opposite to Jeremy.

Show More
Related

  • Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry Courage Quotes

    527 Words  | 2 Pages

    Courage is having to stand up for people who are being treated unfairly or if they have different skin color. In Mildred Taylor’s book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Stacey has to show courage by standing up for his friends and family. Stacey is a seventh grader at Great Faith Elementary School and is the oldest Logan kid. when Papa is gone he feels like he needs to be the man of the house and watch out for his younger siblings. Stacey had to show courage when he helped Little Man get back at the bus, takes the blame for the cheat notes, and took T.J. home when he was injured.

    Read More

  • TJ in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    feel sorry for TJ and pity him as his fate is to be put on the chain

    Read More

  • Racism in Black Boy, Black Caesar and Malcolm X

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    A major difference though is that each deals with racism differently. Tommy blows it off because he just tries to overcome it and become better than the opposing person. Richard becomes angry over it, but acts naively towards it. This can be seen when he gets caught selling the paper, and he doesn't know what it is. "I protested naively, feeling unsure of the entire world now, feeling that racial propaganda surely could not be published in Chicago, the city to which Negroes were fleeing by the thousands." On the other hand Malcolm decides to act white instead of being upset by it. He dyes his hair and walks around with Sophia a white woman.

    Read More

  • Borden Deal's Antaeus

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    From T.J.’s own words and actions and through the narrator’s observation, the reader learns that T.J. is smart and unique. It was T.J.’s idea to build a roof garden, and he figures out how to build it. He knew how to speak to other people, persuading them to do what he wanted them to do. For example, he informed the other boys to find sand and carry it up to the roof. The narrator stated, “T.J. was smart enough to start in one corner of the building, heaping up the carried earth two or three feel thick, so that we had an immediate result to look at…” He did not want to plant grass, but the other boys kept on telling him how great it would be to play on it and to have picnics. T.J. still wanted to plant crops, but he was smart to give in. “He always knew when to give in” the narrator in the story states. He knew how to motivate the other boys and knew when to compromise. When the building owners came up and asked what they were doing, T.J. then suggest...

    Read More

  • The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, T.Ray’s character is in consistent with the decision that he made to leave Lily with the Boatwright sisters because he is careless, unloving and prideful.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Do The Right Thing By Spike Lee

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Do the Right Thing” is a film directed by Spike Lee, which was released in 1989. The film takes place in a small predominately African-American neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The protagonist of the film named Mookie works in a pizzeria located in his neighborhood named, Sal’s Famous Pizzeria. Throughout the film, we see different characters who visit Sal’s pizzeria, including Buggin ' Out, who is a neighborhood local who feels offended when he sees the lack of diversity on the pizzerias wall; which only displays famous Italian-Americans. The lack of African-American culture in the neighborhood leads to a building up of tensions, which eventually explodes into a fight between the owner of the pizzeria Sal, his two sons and the locals.

    Read More

  • Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry

    430 Words  | 1 Pages

    An important idea in the novel "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry" written by Mildred D Taylor is racism.  This idea is important because it tells us how life was in the 1930s for a little black girl who matures with racial conflict around her.

    Read More

  • Themes In Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The story “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison displays a few specific themes through the story which are easy to depict. A few themes from this story are, first racism and finding his self identity, then the danger of fighting stereotype with stereotype, and last blindness. These themes play an important role in the story to better help the reader understand it.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Do The Right Thing

    1627 Words  | 4 Pages

    Spike Lee is brand name when it comes to the film industry. When you try to ask any group of people their opinion about this man, you will probably receive numerous positive responses from the film community as well as the African American community. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) is a film that illustrates how racial conflict can become a reality while showing the repercussions that come with racial segregation. Spike Lee uses a number of tools to write and produce the film in order to ensure the message reaches his intended audience in the best way possible. The use of location, soundtrack, and dialogue is abundant in this film. Therefore, this film analysis paper is for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989). It is a film in which racial segregation ignites riots in a neighborhood dominated by the black population. The heightened scene of this film analysis is where Spike Lee throws a trash can and it is from this that hell breaks loose and riots begin.

    Read More

  • Segregation In The Film: Do The Right Thing

    1489 Words  | 3 Pages

    The film Do the Right Thing is a film written, produced, and directed by Spike Lee. In the film the main character is Mookie, is played by Spike Lee. Mookie is a black male in his younger twenties who delivers for the neighborhood pizza parlor Sal’s Famous Pizzeria. The film takes place in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, also known as Bed Stuy. Throughout the movie we do not know if the weather plays a role in the story, but the tension between racial groups’ increases. We see tension increase within the Blacks and Hispanics, Blacks and Asians, and most importantly between the Blacks and Whites (Italian.) Sal 's Famous Pizzeria is a pizza parlor in the neighborhood that many of the kids in the area grew up eating.

    Read More

  • Willie Loman’s Corrupted View of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    he often lets the family down. There are many flashbacks in the novel to the time

    Read More

  • The Destructors

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    The characters of Greene’s short story are different in their own way. Mike is a childish young boy “at the age of nine [who] was surprised by everything” (50). Trevor, better known as T, comes off to be one of the nicer and more hushed boys in ‘the gang’. “…there were possibilities about his brooding silence that all recognised” (50). Blackie was the gang member who worried that T. was too classy for the gang. “…he was anxious to retain T. in the gang if he could. It was the word ‘beautiful’ that worried him- that belonged to a class world…” (53). However, as the story progresses it comes to be known that Blackie has taken T to be something he is not.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Leon Forrest's A Tree More Ancient Than Eden

    1515 Words  | 4 Pages

    By using figures such as Louis Armstrong, Abraham Lincoln, and Harriet Tubman, the author deals to provide a relevance to the readers. Some characters within the novel are old enough to remember slavery and their presence lets Nathaniel be influenced by their experiences. The author introduced us Jericho who was half-white; yet, his own father treated him as a slave. The history of his family and other African Americans pushes the narrator to develop a perspective of being disliked because of his race. The incorporation of slavery in his ancestor by the author revives history and its effects on the narrator. The novel deals with the 1960’s as well as connecting to the past through Sweetie’s letter to the president. We are introduced to issues such as the War on Poverty and student revolts, along with African American concerns. In addition, Forrest’s indulgence of various historical events are purposed to evoke the moods of darkness and fear. The detailed episodes of the Great Flood, Middle Passage, and the migration of African-Americans, along with the vision of a black Mary under a tree more ancient than Eden, invokes the conscious acknowledgement of the suffering of the black race from centuries ago. The author injects such episodes into Nathaniel’s stream of consciousness to suggest the continuity

    Read More

  • Social Psychology In The Movie Crash

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    The movie Crash is in the streets of Los Angeles. If you notice all of the characters seem to play the victim and accuser in different racial situations. There is a story behind each character over a two day period. There is the detective who is prejudice against his own race whose younger brother is a criminal. There is Jean who is prejudice against black people after getting robbed. John is the cop who is racist against all black people and sexually assaults Christine in front of her husband. This movies show’s so many of the social psychological principles through the story of each individual.

    Read More

  • Themes Of The Vendetta

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    Determine all of the story's conflicts. Determine the major conflict and state this in terms of protagonist versus antagonist.

    Read More

More about Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Open Document